


Je Reviens

by lazarusthefirst



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Bonding, Drinking, Fluff, Getting Together, Jeremy tries so hard, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of past abuse, Post-Canon, Trojans, making up exy teams and Trojans as I go along, non-graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6238399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazarusthefirst/pseuds/lazarusthefirst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Moreau is a rain cloud,’ Alvarez muttered, annoyed and bruised, watching Jean stalk ahead to the changing rooms. ‘He’s the human embodiment of a headache. He is the opposite of a Trojan.’<br/>‘Fucking good though, isn’t he?’ grinned Connor, jogging past.<br/>'Can't we all just be nice?' Jeremy asked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this over two weeks with no wifi. Turns out THAT'S the reason I procrastinate! Go figure
> 
> Anyways Jeremy struggling with his feelings while trying to be a good person and help Jean heal is everything to me so here's 20k of that 
> 
> (Title is "I come back" and I may or may not have been inspired by the ghost boat in Rebecca but twisted it around bc reasons that make sense to me)

‘I get the feeling you don’t want to be here.’

Jean looked up from where he was sorting through his Exy armour. He raised one elegant eyebrow and Jeremy was reminded of every bad thing he’d ever heard about the Ravens. Which was a shitty thing to think about his new teammate who still bore the marks of Riko’s abuse, but Jean had only been here five minutes and he was already giving Jeremy a stress headache. 

‘I’ve already been offered a therapist, thanks,’ said Jean idly, looking back to his gear. ‘Are you ready or not?’

Jeremy pursed his lips but got up anyways, shouldering his racquet. Jean had yet to speak to him with anything even bordering disrespect, but from the way he treated the others - or didn’t - Jeremy was fairly sure that was only because he was the captain. It was very uncomfortable knowing that he was probably constantly being compared to Riko. Was Jeremy living up to Jean’s expectations of a captain? Jeremy didn’t know if he wanted to or not. 

For two weeks Jean had lain low at Palmetto, riding out the end of the championships and the Foxes’ triumph with hardly a murmur, according to Renee. He’d called her to ask how Jean was taking Riko’s death, and Renee could only tell him that Abby had to sedate him. 

Jeremy wasn’t Dan Wilds. His Trojans were a good bunch, from fairly stable homes. A few divorces and dead family members here and there, but nothing that couldn’t be exerted into submission on the court. Trojans left their issues at the door when they came to play. Jean carried them on every bruise, every scar, wore them like a skin he couldn’t shed. 

Jeremy had taken his usual month off to go home for summer break, but had agreed to come back early to help Jean settle in. Nearly a month and a half of rooming with him, playing exy with him, eating dinner and basically spending all of their free time together, and Jeremy could count the amount of times Jean had volunteered information on one hand. It left Jeremy talking too much and wondering if he was making Jean want to kill himself. 

‘Jean,’ he said, for what felt like the hundredth time. ‘I feel like we haven’t really talked properly, and it’s important that you get your head straight before classes start - ‘

‘Can you please stop talking and wasting my time?’ Jean interrupted, with unusual venom. He tossed his heavy racquet from hand to hand restlessly. ‘Come on, lets get moving.’

Jean still wasn’t quite match fit after the beating and subsequent mandatory break he’d had to take from training, and Jeremy could see how it irritated him. He’d been training hard with Jean ever since he’d been cleared to run again, including evening sessions, and they’d exchanged maybe five words that weren’t strictly exy related. It wasn’t how Jeremy liked to operate. 

‘Fine,’ he said, rolling his shoulders. ‘If you’re so eager. You miss one pass, you’re walking home.’

‘I won’t miss if you sort your shitty aim out,’ Jean retorted. 

Jeremy had perfect aim, so the dig did nothing but make Jeremy laugh, which was definitely something Jean wasn’t used to. He squinted slightly at Jeremy before running off ahead of him. 

The rest of the team had flooded back to California two days ago, and the reception had been frosty at best. Jean had actually taken a step back when Laila had approached him, raw tension seizing up his shoulders, and Jeremy mentally kicked himself for basically isolating Jean all summer. Jean had been stuck to Jeremy like a limpet ever since, and seemed to be hating every second of it. 

Practise the next day was as tense as it had been the day before. Jean was the elephant on the court; the team didn’t know whether to avoid him or body check him to the ground. Jean had absolutely no reservations on that subject, and floored his opponents mercilessly but legally. Now that Jeremy was leading a practise and not going at him one on one, he could really appreciate the way Jean moved, and what he could bring to the team. If only he could get on board with them.

‘Connor, tighten up,’ he called, letting the team move around him from his position as dealer. He was surplus to requirements at the moment, but Coach liked to put him on for all their scrimmages so he could watch among them and give instruction. ‘Alvarez, that’s good but collect it quicker or you’ll run out of room with that manoeuvre. Jean - Christ.’

As usual, Jean left him lost for words. He’d stretched to catch the ball from an impossible angle and turned to fling it back up towards the dealer faster than she could react. No one was expected to make a catch like that, certainly not in a practise. The scrimmage stalled a little in reaction, and Coach banged on the glass to get Jeremy’s attention. 

‘React quicker!’ Jeremy called to them, a beat out of step himself, and the scrimmage resumed.

‘Good practise,’ he told Jean afterwards, smiling his usual toothy smile. Jean met his eyes like Jeremy’s praise was akin to throwing dollar bills around. Frivolous, a waste. 

‘Moreau is a rain cloud,’ Alvarez muttered, annoyed and bruised, watching Jean stalk ahead to the changing rooms. ‘He’s the human embodiment of a headache. He is the opposite of a Trojan.’

‘Fucking good though, isn’t he?’ grinned Connor, jogging past.

'Can't you just be nice?' Jeremy asked.

Alvarez gave an incredulous shrug,  but followed the other girls into the changing room. The others hadn’t complained - at least, not to Jeremy - but it was hard to reconcile Jean’s dark nature to the Trojan’s pep and cheer.

But _was_ it his nature, wondered Jeremy. He didn’t even know how long Jean had been with the Ravens before starting college. 

‘How old were you when you left France?’ he asked Jean later, when they were eating dinner in the canteen. Jean was sitting opposite him and froze mid-chew. There were a few freezing-cold seconds in which all eyes turned to Jeremy, and Jean debated whether or not to swallow his food. When he did, it was slow and deliberate, and when he raised his eyes to look at Jeremy it made something hard and heavy land in Jeremy’s stomach. 

When Jeremy looked back at the incident later, he was more than a little embarrassed. But in the moment, he only felt incredibly guilty for making Jean think about home. For putting that look on his face. 

Jean finished eating and left without a word. Usually, he waited for Jeremy to finish. Everyone noticed. 

But the next day, nothing had changed. Jean accompanied him to and from classes as much as he was able to. They spot for each other in the gym, paired up for passes in practise, and ate meals together. Jeremy sometimes found it hard to concentrate on anything else because he was wondering just how much attention Jean was paying to him. 

Digging out his phone, he texted Luke, his best friend from home. 

**I can’t decide if Jean hates it here or not. He seems to think we’re all ridiculous, but puts up with us all anyways. He seems to hate everything about the Trojans.**

_Don’t worry. I hated you too at first._

Luke didn’t say that, but he probably would have.

_Come on, where’s that Day spirit?_

He’d probably say that too. That gave Jeremy an idea.

**Any idea why Jean hates me, but also sticks to me like glue?**

It took Kevin almost three days to reply.

_Seriously, Jeremy?_

**Seriously it’s taken you three days to reply?**

_Three days for you to think about why Jean might have complicated feelings towards exy captains? Towards friends in general?_

It took a long phone conversation with Renee, who explained some of the gorier details about the Nest that got left out of the press release, for Jeremy to finally get it. Jean had always done everything with Riko, his captain, because that was what being a Raven was for him. He’d been Riko’s property, his pet, his punching bag. The years of abuse had simultaneously toughened him to the point of outward and automatic hostility, but also damaged something crucial inside of him that made it almost impossible for Jean to make a positive choice for himself. He stuck with Jeremy because he didn’t know how to be alone. It made him intensely uncomfortable because being so close to someone generally meant pain and abuse. And around and around it went. 

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Jeremy said one day, catching Laila and Ryan after their shared Spanish class. They looked at him curiously as he explained, but immediately got on board. So did Tori, Alexa, Connor, and Tariq. Alvarez looked skeptical but she was a Trojan so she was game. By evening practise, Jeremy was feeling confident. He even texted Luke, betting him $100 it would work. Luke would take that bet for sure. 

It was easy enough to implement. They were Trojans; chatty, warm, easygoing. Teamwork was the aim of the game, it was what made them so good. They pulled each other up and fed off each others strengths and shored up each others weaknesses. Jeremy wouldn’t have to force-feed Jean sunshine, but he’d make damn sure to get him a tan.

He was stupid to think that by the end of the week Jean wouldn’t have noticed anything was up. Jeremy didn’t avoid him exactly, but he always made sure that there was someone else around, or that someone would get to Jean before he did and strike up a conversation. By the end of the first day, Jean was giving him funny looks. By the weekend, he was openly glaring at Jeremy but it was impossible not to respond to the Trojans. Laila and Connor in particular could drag talk from a stone, and it gave Jeremy all kinds of warm and fuzzies whenever he saw Jean nodding at one of their comments or volunteering an opinion. He’d told them to stick to safe subjects - usually Exy, but college was good too - but by the weekend, Jeremy felt reasonably confident in moving forward.

‘Wanna get dinner tonight off campus?’ he asked as they scanned their way into the building. 

‘Sure,’ Jean replied, sounding his usual detached self. Then he added, ‘Who else?’

Jeremy bit back a smile. ‘No one else,’ he said. ‘Just us. That ok?’

Jean looked more taken aback at his own reply than Jeremy’s. ‘Uh, yeah,’ he said, sounding a little confused. Jeremy led the way down the hall so Jean couldn’t see him smiling. 

Conversation was definitely easier between them now. Jeremy was naturally a talker; he chatted away to himself, wondering aloud if the new Red Lobster was any good and trying to remember the last time he’d had seafood. And regardless of whether or not Jean still found the Trojan’s entire ethos patently ridiculous, he’d spent the whole week being conversationally woo’d and couldn’t help replying. 

‘I hate seafood,’ he said abruptly. ‘Let’s get Chinese.’

Jeremy paused mid-sentence, and raised his eyebrows. ‘Ok,’ he said quickly. ‘Yeah, sure. Great.’

That was probably three words too many, judging by the irritated jerk of Jean’s head, but this was a solid win in Jeremy’s book. They showered and changed and made their way downtown, Jeremy talking mostly about exy and Jean nodding along, occasionally making a suggestion or comment that would send Jeremy off in a totally different direction, because Jean’s perspective on the game was _unbelievable._ He saw the whole thing so strangely, so very different to Jeremy. He didn’t know if it was a Raven thing or if Jean’s brain just naturally operated on a different frequency, but Jean had a knowledge of the game that was born of both the intense tactical style of play he learned at the Ravens, and a genuine flair for understanding the movement of the game. 

‘Man, I usually have to get a ruler out to call plays based on another player’s measurements,’ Jeremy said, unable to read his menu because he was just so _interested._ ‘You’ve got such a head for this.’

Jean shrugged, skimming his own menu before setting it down. ‘It’s instinct,’ he said. ‘It’s why I made number 3.’

He paused and so did Jeremy, both waiting to see if the ice cracked beneath them.

‘Neil Josten was supposed to be number 3,’ Jean said quietly, twirling his knife on the table. ‘We think the same way, apparently.’

Jeremy didn’t think there was an appropriate response to this. 

‘Can I ask you something?’ he said, wishing Jean would look at him so he could figure out how he was feeling. 

‘Yeah, how long was I at Evermore?’

Jeremy blinked. ‘Yeah, how did you - ’

Jean looked up and met his eyes. ‘You have a tone.’

Jeremy almost didn’t register the comment because he was too busy being floored by how non-stressed Jean looked. His shoulders were relaxed, his forehead was smooth, and his expression was open, waiting for Jeremy to respond. 

‘Since I was ten,’ Jean said, ‘is the answer. To that. So, nearly twelve years.’

Jeremy opened his mouth, then closed it. He sat back in his seat and thought about that. He tried not to let his stomach sink down to his shoes, but it was hard. Twelve years? And he expected to make Jean suddenly feel all happy and normal?

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Jean, I’m sorry. I get that I’ve been pushing you, trying to make you adapt as a Trojan or whatever. I never even thought - I mean, the length of time - ‘

‘Being a Raven is what I had to do,’ Jean interrupted him. ‘I knew it wouldn’t end once I graduated, like it would for the others. This meant I was Riko’s for life.’ He gestured irritably at the tattoo on his cheek, then dropped his hand. When he spoke again, his voice was hard. 

‘I didn’t intend to stick around for that.’

Jeremy frowned. The waiter came to take their order. Jean smoothly ordered for both of them, because Jeremy always ordered the blandest thing on the menu and he was currently too busy staring at Jean to order. 

‘What do you mean,’ he asked, as soon as the waiter had disappeared. ‘You were going to run?’

What might have been a smile threatened to tug at Jean’s lips, but his eyes were sad. Pitying, almost. 

‘You saw what running got Neil,’ he said. ’Kevin only escaped because he couldn’t play anymore. And Ravens aren’t good at being … you know, alone.’

Jeremy looked into Jean’s eyes and suddenly understood.

‘Oh,’ he said. Just to fill the awful, gaping silence with anything but images. ‘Oh.’

Jean didn’t look sad. He didn’t look anything. He didn’t appear to care what Jeremy thought. 

‘But I’m here now,’ he continued, smoothing over an awkward silence as only Jean could. ‘So I can start learning how to be … a little bit more of who I’d like to be, I suppose. A bit more like who I could have been.’

It went without saying that Jean had likely entered the care of the Moriyama’s too early in life not to have been in some way shaped by his experiences there. There was probably no coming back from all of that. But Jean was saying that was ok, that it was part of him now. And Jeremy realised that, in his heart, he hadn’t been waiting for Jean to suddenly change into this nicer, more open and friendlier person. To magically get better and pretend like it had all just been a bad dream. 

He’d only been waiting to see who Jean was underneath all those years. 

Jeremy realised he was smiling at Jean, and that Jean was kind of smiling back. 

They ate in relative silence, with only a few easy comments about how good the food was. Jeremy, normally a talker, felt comfortable casually commenting on things and not needing a reply. With Jean, he didn’t feel like he was talking to the wall, but neither did he feel like Jean was going to pounce on everything he said. Jean appeared ok with this, and nodded occasionally in agreement. 

‘Can I ask you something else?’ Jeremy spoke up again, as they were finishing. 

Jean wiped his mouth and dropped his napkin into his plate. He indicated with his hand for Jeremy to go on.

‘It’s more of a favour,’ actually, said Jeremy. He hadn’t planned on asking Jean to do this with him, but something about it felt right. 

‘Ask me.’

Jeremy leaned forward. ‘I have to go upstate tomorrow night. There’s something I gotta do, and I hate doing it alone. You wanna come with? It’s like, three hours both ways.’

That wasn’t too long for a travelling athlete, but it was long enough that Jean would miss most of the day. And yet he didn’t bat an eyelid.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘What are we doing?’

‘Just me,’ said Jeremy. ‘It’s nothing major. But I just need you to come with me.’

Jean raised an eyebrow. ‘Sounds weird,’ he said. ‘What time?’

Jeremy grinned. ‘Leave around midday? Means we have time to get back earlier.’

Jean just nodded, then motioned for the cheque. 

 _It’s totally working_ , Jeremy texted Luke as they left the restaurant _. See you tomorrow buddy._

It ended up being a lot later by the time they left campus. Practise ran late and then they wanted to get lunch, and by the time they got sorted it was nearly 2pm when they left. 

‘Oops,’ said Jean mildly, glancing at the time. Jeremy just shrugged.

‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘Music?’

They listened to the radio for a good chunk of the drive, but occasionally spoke over it. Mostly they talked about Exy, and college, and other safe subjects. It was comfortable, normal, anything Jeremy would have talked about with the other Trojans. For some reason though, with Jean he founded himself wanting to steer away from anything mundane and ask him what was really on his mind. For some reason he really wanted to know Jean’s opinion on the multiverse theory.

Jean didn’t ask again what they were doing, and Jeremy was grateful. Once he pulled up to the cemetery, the sun beating down on the gravestones, it was all fairly clear.

Jean didn’t say anything as Jeremy led the way through the cemetery. Luke’s grave was towards the end, a neat little stone with a small engraving. 1994-2014.

‘This is Luke,’ said Jeremy. ‘Best friends all our lives. He was real nice.’

Jean glanced at the stone, then back to Jeremy. 

‘He was going to be a scientist. Loved math, big weirdo.’

‘USC?’

‘Harvard.’

Jeremy looked back to the gravestone.

‘I text him sometimes,’ he said abruptly. ‘I need to stop doing that.’

Jean waited a moment, then stepped back a few paces. Jeremy never knew what to say to Luke’s grave, because he didn’t associate it with his friend. It had nothing to do with Jean being there. He’d be more comfortable texting him. But he needed to stop doing that. 

He reached out and put his hand on the stone. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to remember something small, anything that he used to do with Luke and couldn’t anymore. This time he settled on riding their bikes fast down the hill, racing to be the first one into the water on a summer’s day. 

‘Miss you,’ he murmured, letting himself feel it. It was a shame that all of Jeremy’s worst memories were now also Luke memories. It made remembering the good ones so difficult. His head bowed and his body bent slightly, and he screwed his eyes shut tight. Crying in front of Jean wasn’t a big deal. But the breakdown had to be saved for later.

Jean was silent on their way back to the car.

‘Let’s get food,’ Jeremy suggested. Knowing Jean was as starved as he was, he didn’t bother waiting for an answer.

They found a diner in a quiet part of town. Jeremy always resented the fact that Luke’s parents had buried his body so far from where Luke would have considered his home, but he supposed he should be grateful that it was within driving distance of USC. And it was his parent’s decision, after all. Whatever was easiest on them is what was important. 

‘How did he die?’

Jeremy didn’t find it particularly hard to talk about Luke. He’d come to terms with what had happened fairly quickly, but he’d been sad for a very long time. He didn’t like saying it out loud, especially to Jean, but Jeremy didn’t know how to be anything but honest.

‘Uh, he shot himself that summer,’ Jeremy said. ‘I don’t know why. I mean, not specifically. Maybe it wasn’t specific. But I guess I’ll never know.’

Jean looked a little uneasy at the revelation, and Jeremy focused on his plate to give him time to adjust. Once again, Riko had muscled his way into their conversation.

‘I hadn’t seen him for a few months,’ Jeremy admitted. ‘I was so caught up with the Trojans that summer… and he was supposed to fly out, but then he got busy with school. We kept missing each other. Our timing was always terrible.’

That was more than Jeremy had intended to say, and Jean being Jean didn’t miss a thing.

’What do you mean?’ he asked carefully. 

Jeremy shrugged, smiling a little. ‘I mean we could never get it right, the two of us. It probably just meant we were better off as just friends, but there was always something.’ He dropped his eyes again because shit, thinking about this never really got any less painful. ‘Always something we couldn’t manage to ignore.’

Something Jeremy really liked about Jean was that nothing about Jeremy fazed him, but he could tell Jean hadn’t been expecting this. Maybe the Trojans just did a good job of hiding any pain in their lives, but Jean seemed more thrown by this than by any revelation about Jeremy’s sexuality. 

‘You loved him.’

Jeremy nodded. ‘In every way you can love a person, yeah.’ His heart was a heavy weight in his chest, the way he only let it get once a year because feeling this constantly would make it impossible for Jeremy to function.

This didn’t explain why it leapt when Jean reached across the table and stopped Jeremy fiddling with his knife. His cool fingers closed over Jeremy’s hand and held it. Jeremy felt the contact from his skin like a bolt of electricity, and he looked up, startled. 

Jean’s eyes were intense, but his expression was soft. 

‘Then I’m sorry you lost him,’ he said. It was as simple as that. He let go of his hand and sat back, picking up his fork again. He was quiet the rest of the evening, but only looked thoughtful.

The day had taken it out of Jeremy. They lingered over dinner, both reluctant to get up and leave, ordering coffee and letting it go cold. 

‘It’s later than I thought,’ muttered Jeremy, glancing at his phone. His voice snapped Jean out of whatever reverie he’d been in.

‘I can drive,’ he said, getting up and digging out his wallet.

‘You want to just stay?’ Jeremy asked suddenly, dragging his gaze up to Jean. ‘Crash in a motel somewhere, get drinks?’

Jean watched him carefully, waiting for Jeremy to keep explaining himself. Jeremy like that he didn’t prod, just let Jeremy know that he was still waiting for more of an explanation.

‘I just don’t feel like spending the next few hours in a car,’ Jeremy said. ‘I know, I’m sorry I’m being awkward, but - ‘

‘You never ask for anything,’ Jean interrupted him. He was counting out bills and didn’t look at Jeremy when he said ‘We can do what you want today.’

Jeremy followed him out, a little dumbstruck.

Knowing that they were going to be staying the night, Jeremy drove them to a liquor store where they had a heated debate over brands of vodka (Goose vs _literally anything else you pretentious douchebag_ ) until Jean just grabbed both and paid while Jeremy made faces at him.

Jeremy didn’t want to stop in the town itself because he wanted to shed the weight of his dead best friend as quickly as possible, so they drove a few miles down the road until they found a motel. Nothing about it made Jeremy feel in any way concerned, but Jean was starting to look a little agitated. A double for one night was pleasantly affordable and by the time they made their way out to the badly lit pool with drinks in hand, Jeremy’s mood had improved considerably. 

The alcohol helped loosen him up further, and as they dangled their legs in the water Jeremy found himself chatting about things he didn’t even know he wanted to talk about with Jean. 

‘I couldn’t swim until I was eighteen,’ Jeremy confessed, kicking his legs slowly in the water. The vodka was making his mouth burn. He usually mixed it, but Jean drank it straight because of course he did, and neither of them had thought to buy anything else.

Jean snorted, mouth pursing in a laugh around the mouth of his bottle. Jeremy’s eyes devoured the image as Jean set the bottle down, wiping at his mouth with the back of his knuckles. 

‘Seriously?’ he asked, looking at Jeremy. ‘Eighteen? How did you not die?’

Jeremy shrugged. ‘I grew up on a farm, ok? The biggest body of water I saw up to that point was the river that ran out the back of our house, and mom never let me go in it.’

‘And you always follow the rules,’ Jean said, teasing but being nice about it. 

Jeremy slanted a look at him but they were both smiling. ‘Can you swim?’

Jean shrugged dismissively. ‘Of course I can swim. I could swim before I could walk.’

‘I highly doubt that.’

‘How would you know, you can’t swim.’

‘I can swim _now_ ,’ Jeremy laughed, tickled by the little smirk on Jean’s face. ‘I learned once I moved to California.’

Jean looked skeptical. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I think you can only _really_ learn when you’re a child.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Truth.’

‘Where did you learn?’

Jean blinked at the backtrack. ‘Uh, at the beach, I guess?’ 

‘Who taught you?’

It was a normal question to ask, but the alcohol had loosened Jeremy’s tongue past the point where he knew to be careful. Too slow, he closed his eyes and shook his head a little. ‘Sorry, never mind.’

Jean raised the bottle again, looking at the water. ‘My mom,’ he said, before taking a drink. Jeremy watched him swallow, getting buzzed on how Jean’s lips looked against the glass. ‘She taught me when I was four. We used to go to the beach after school. Even when I got older, we still went every few days. I was playing exy more then, but we still … One time when she was pregnant, she said she could feel the baby kicking around more in the water, like the baby was trying to swim too.’

Maybe it was the vodka or something else, but Jeremy felt like Jean was entirely without walls in this moment. His face was raw and open, drawn right back into his past and reliving memories he might not have thought about for years. 

Jeremy couldn’t look at Jean’s face anymore so he looked down at the legs, bare to the knee and distorted by the water. He moved his leg just a bit so that his foot brushed Jean’s, slow enough to be deliberate. He moved it back and waited, and his heart thudded loudly when Jean knocked their ankles together. 

‘How are you so positive all the time?’ Jean asked abruptly. Jeremy was dismayed to hear how tired he sounded all of a sudden.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, frowning. ‘I don’t really try, I guess? I just am the way I am.’

It wasn’t a great answer, and Jean didn’t seem to like it. He took a long drink of the vodka, one that would have had Jeremy coughing to death, then said ‘I don’t understand that. What you told me about Luke sucks. Don’t you have a reason? For being positive? Why do you _care_ so much.’

He was insisting, and more than a little drunk. Jeremy was feeling it too, and right now with Jean looking like this he probably would have given him anything he asked for. He also suspected they were coming to the root of Jean’s problem with the Trojans; he suddenly wished he were more sober.

‘Because what’s the point otherwise?’ he said softly. He took the bottle from Jean’s hand and set it down between them. Jean’s fingers were unresisting. ‘Yeah, sometimes I have bad days. It sucks. Luke had bad days, but there wasn’t much he could do about them. He was legitimately ill and I’m sure as fuck that he didn’t want to be. Luke wanted so badly to be happy. And I want to be happy. I’d be a pretty bad friend if I didn’t at least try.’

Jean stared at him. ‘As if it’s that easy,’ he murmured, voice low and unsteady. 

Jeremy shrugged. ‘It’s not,’ he admitted. ‘But I keep trying, because I deserve it.’

He let that hang between them, then took a deliberate drink from Jean’s vodka. 

‘That’s mine,’ Jean pointed out when he set it back down.

Jeremy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Shut up, Moreau.’

Jeremy felt a hand press hard against the flat of his back, and then he was in the water. He came up spluttering, momentarily forgetting that yes, he could actually swim, and flailed around before grabbing at Jean’s legs. Jean tried to wriggle back, and even though Jeremy had a firm grip on his legs he nearly lost it because Jean was actually laughing. Jeremy climbed halfway out of the pool and up Jean’s body before he succeeded in dragging him down on top of him. 

‘That was unsafe,’ Jeremy commented, when they’d both resurfaced. Jean was still laughing, a kind of breathless coughing laughter as he tread water. ‘And look. I can swim.’

‘That’s not swimming,’ Jean said, grinning at him. ‘That’s treading water. That’s _staying afloat_. A pigeon could do that.’

Jeremy glared at him, then dived under the water. The chlorine was murder on his eyes even though he squeezed them shut, but he went right under Jean and came up on his other side.

‘There - argh - see? Fuck, my eyes.’ His lenses had stayed in, but barely.

‘ _Can_ you see?’ Jean sounded extremely amused. 

‘Mostly,’ said Jean, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. The water moved against him, and then Jean was pulling his hands away from his eyes. Despite the stinging, Jeremy could see just fine, which was good because Jean was right there in his space and dripping wet and there was nothing wrong with _his_ eyes.

‘Good,’ he said, smiling a little. He still had a hold of Jeremy’s hands. ‘Because I really want to beat Penn next week.’

Jeremy could only smile back at him like a fool. The look in Jean’s eyes was as welcome as it was unfamiliar; soft, teasing, light. 

Jeremy twisted in Jean’s grip, pulling his hands down just enough so that their palms and fingertips lined up. 

‘Nice to know you care,’ muttered Jeremy, suddenly very focused on Jean’s mouth. He tried to drag his eyes away repeatedly, but they kept going back there. 

‘You’re going to drown with your hands down there,’ Jean said, voice unbearably quiet.

‘Then you are too,’ Jeremy said. The words were stumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. ’Thanks for coming out here for me. I couldn’t have done this by myself.’ 

Why did he always have to _speak_? Jean was nodding and pulling back a little, treading water again. The smile was still there, but nothing else. ‘Sure,’ he said, like always. ‘It was kind of fun. This part, I mean.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Jeremy. ‘We should probably, like …’

‘Dry off, yeah.’

‘Yeah.’

Having exactly no other clothes with them apart from spare exy hoodies in the car, they stripped and let their clothes dry in the bathroom. The alcohol was making them too sleepy to think about the uncomfortable drive home awaiting them, so they bundled up in the hoodies and got into their respective beds. 

Drinking had taken some of Jean’s strangely nervous edge off, but Jeremy woke in the middle of the night to the sound of Jean having a nightmare. This was strange in and of itself, because Jean never had nightmares. Or he had, but only for a week, when he’d first moved into the dorms at USC. Jeremy had let him sleep through most of them, because he thought the only thing more frightening than having a nightmare was being woken from that nightmare by someone strange in an unfamiliar room. 

This time, however, it was just the unfamiliar room they had to contend with. Jeremy crossed the room barefoot and crouched down beside the bed. Jean was on his back, muttering in half French and half English,  a mix of terrified denials and pleading, hands clenching the bedsheets. His head was thrown back and he was sweating, so Jeremy pulled the bedclothes back. The movement caused Jean’s hand to shoot out and grab Jeremy’s wrist in a bruising grip, and Jeremy couldn’t help but make a sound of surprise.

Jean’s eyes flew open. He sat up and leaned towards Jeremy so fast he almost fell out of the bed. His breathing was ragged and hitched going in, and Jeremy recognised the beginnings of a panic attack.

‘Jean,’ he said, trying to keep his voice calm and level. ‘It’s ok. It’s me, it’s Jeremy. Breathe.’

‘Where am I?’ Jean whispered, voice wild and afraid. He could barely force out the words.

‘You’re with me,’ Jeremy said. ‘We’re at a motel. You’re with me. It’s just us, and you’re ok.’

Jean closed his eyes tight and shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the nightmare, of the place that alcohol and unfamiliar surroundings had dragged him back to. Jeremy reached out to touch his face, rising up on his knees to bring their foreheads together. 

‘Come back to me,’ Jeremy whispered, fear striking his own heart now. Fear and guilt, because this was his fault. _We can do what you want today._

‘You’re here with me,’ Jeremy said again, and he kept saying it because Jean was finding his breath again. ‘It’s just you and me, and we’re in California, and you’re ok.’

Jean was nodding, and pulling away, because this is how Jean reacted whenever anything fucked with him this badly. Jeremy wanted to climb into the damn bed and hold him until he stopped shaking but Jean wouldn’t want that, so he squeezed his shoulder and let him go. Jean, still half asleep, rolled over in bed, and Jeremy went back to his. 


	2. Chapter 2

Jeremy worried that being away from USC even for a night might have been some kind of setback for Jean, but his fears turned out to be groundless. Jean looked almost relieved as they reached familiar surroundings. 

‘I gotta call coach,’ Jeremy said, when they were about half an hour out. ‘Will you drive?’

So they switched seats and Jeremy explained as best he could to Coach Rhemann why his captain and backliner had gone radio silent for a day. It wasn’t that Jeremy had been ignoring any of his texts like he knew Jean had been - he’d opened and read each one - but the team and his coach knew about the anniversary, and it was only fair that he touch base with them before they arrived back.

‘You ok?’ Coach’s voice was as calm and unemotional as always. 

‘Yeah, no problems,’ Jeremy said easily. ‘Sorry for the silence.’

‘It’s ok, you’re allowed,’ said Coach. ‘You nearly back?’

‘We’re twenty minutes out.’

Coach paused. ‘We?’

Jeremy didn’t answer immediately, letting Coach work it out for himself. 

‘Yep,’ he said. ‘We’ll be back in time for practise. Thanks Coach.’

Jean didn’t comment, so Jeremy settled for watching Jean drive. His long arms were loose and relaxed, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gearstick. Jeremy found he loved watching him like this almost as much as he loved watching him on the court. 

Practise was a relief. Jeremy was a little hungover and it was good to sweat it out, even if it made his head pound. No one commented on the amount of water he and Jean were putting away, but everyone found time to squeeze his shoulder or smile at him. 

Jean played out of his skin, despite how much more he’d drank than Jeremy. His teammates reacted accordingly, cheering and patting him on the back, and Jeremy heard more than one person ask Jean to show them again how he did this or that. Raven drills weren’t something Jeremy or Coach wanted to explicitly encourage, but there was no denying some of that footwork had to be taken advantage of. 

And what struck Jeremy the most was how Jean reacted to the attention. When his teammates were coming up to ask him strictly technical questions, or to discuss strategy or the team in general, Jean was positively chatty. During the warm down Jeremy watched him engaged in such an in-depth conversation with Tori that they both had to be called to attention by Coach. 

And somehow it managed to continue like that. Jean hadn’t appreciated the way Jeremy had set the other Trojans on him every day, but now that they were genuinely approaching him about exy he found himself more amenable to other topics of conversations. Contrary to what Jean had clearly thought when he’d arrived, the Trojans were not smiling happy fools with nothing on their minds. Perhaps he’d believed that Jeremy was the exception to this, and Jeremy was delighted to watch him discover that it wasn’t true about any of them. 

But Jean continue to stick to Jeremy like glue. At this point Jeremy was starting to worry that it wasn’t because he actually liked Jeremy, but because he wasn’t comfortable without him. Like a kind of safety net or something. Jeremy had had this before with Luke, and maybe Luke hadn’t killed himself because he’d become too dependent on Jeremy but it had certainly messed with their relationship. The trouble was, Jeremy really liked having Jean around. And now maybe it was Jeremy who was in danger of being too reliant on Jean. 

One evening in early November, Jeremy ran out of contact lenses. He’d left a bunch of them in his locker, but it was late and he didn’t feel like going to the court so he dug out his glasses and put them on so he could study. When Jean entered the room, he didn’t actually recognise him. 

’Wow.’ Jean’s voice had such a strong tone of amusement that Jeremy didn’t even look up from his notes.

‘Shut up.’

‘You look like - ’

‘Clark Kent, I know. I’ve heard.’

Jean eased his bag off his shoulder and let it fall to the floor. ‘I was going to say a sexy librarian, but sure.’

Jeremy snorted, ignoring how much he liked hearing that. ‘Thanks, Jean.’

‘Always happy to boost your ego,’ Jean said agreeably. He crossed the room and whipped the glasses off Jeremy’s face, who blinked in annoyance. 

‘I need those,’ he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

‘How bad are your eyes?’ Jean asked, looking from the frames to Jeremy.

‘Bad,’ Jeremy said. ‘I can’t see for shit.’

‘Can you see my face?’

Jeremy squinted. ‘Nope. All blurry.’

‘How many fingers am I holding up.’

Jeremy grinned. ‘I suspect one.’

Jean popped the glasses on to Jeremy’s head. He was smiling when Jeremy pulled them down on to his face. ‘See? Your eyes aren’t that bad.’

‘Go away,’ Jeremy said. ‘I’m studying.’

Jean grinned and left him to it, but Jeremy felt his eyes on him on more than one occasion during the evening. 

It was mid-November before Jean agreed to help Jeremy with French. Jeremy had taken it all through school and had felt reasonably confident in selecting it as a module at USC along with history, but Jeremy had never been the best student and couldn’t help but prioritise exy and Jean and basically everything else over studying. Practising French, at least, was something he could multitask.

‘There are a number of reasons why this election is - ’

‘Your accent is terrible,’ Jean interrupted, stirring his coffee. ‘It doesn’t count if you don’t sound French.’

Jeremy grinned. ‘But I’m not French. It sounds like I’m making fun.’

‘It sounds like you’re making fun if you don’t,’ said Jean solemnly, but Jeremy knew he was teasing. ‘Please try harder.’

Jeremy sucked it up and tried his best, but Jean cut him off before he was halfway through. ‘Nope, I don’t understand you.’

Jeremy glared. ‘Yes you do.’

Jean shrugged. ‘Nope. Sounds like rubbish.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘How are you even passing?’

Jeremy took his glasses off to clean them so that he could have something to do that wasn’t grin stupidly at Jean. So far, he was the only one that Jean was light like this around. It shouldn’t have made him so happy, but it did. 

Jean’s mug clinked against the counter as he set it down. He snatched the glasses from Jeremy and held them out of his reach. Jeremy rolled his eyes and put out his hand. 

‘Give them back,’ he said. 

‘No. Ask me in French.’

‘Jean, I need those.’

‘Great. Ask me for them.’

Jeremy sighed theatrically, shoulders slumping like Jean was asking him for the biggest favour ever. 

‘Give me my - ’

‘Can’t understand you.’

Jeremy was fighting a smile. He was supposed to be annoyed. ‘Give me my - ’

‘Say please.’

Jeremy couldn’t see the smirk on Jean’s face or the twinkle in his eye, but he knew they were there. He bit his lip, trying to keep a straight face and failing utterly. 

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t quite - ’

Jeremy stepped forward into what little of Jean’s space he could make out. He stopped when he felt the tips of their shoes bump. He could feel Jean’s breath on his face.

‘Please give me my glasses,’ he said, in perfect French. ‘Jean.’

There was a very long pause where Jeremy tried to make out what Jean’s face looked like. He heard him swallow, and when he exhaled his breath was slightly shaky. 

Jean raised his hand and very gently set Jeremy’s glasses on his face. Jeremy blinked a little to clear his vision, then focused on Jean’s eyes. 

‘How was that?’ he asked quietly. 

Jean’s expression was a little unsettled, so Jeremy stepped back quickly. 

‘Better,’ he said, ‘better.’

It was only at night, in the dark, that Jeremy could admit to himself how badly he wanted Jean. He wanted to touch him and kiss him and keep him bed with him for days at a time, memorising every line and curve and asking him every question he had to stop himself from voicing. But it wasn’t fair. Jean had attached himself to him because he was his captain and the only one who’d been willing to tolerate his angry silences and retorts, and now he stayed with him because choosing anyone else over Jeremy was stepping outside his comfort zone. Jeremy knew pushing him away wasn’t the answer - and it certainly wasn’t fair to Jean to make him do anything that made him unhappy or uncomfortable, just for Jeremy’s sake - but Jeremy could not, in good conscience, make any kind of move on Jean, who was for all intents and purposes heterosexual. Even if he wasn’t, Jeremy was his captain first, at least in Jean’s mind, and that created a whole tangle of problems before they even touched on sexuality. 

He typed out a text to Luke explaining all of this, but for once he didn’t send it.

It was up to Jeremy to reinforce the line between them, so that Jean wouldn’t get the wrong idea. Setting the Trojans on Jean had worked before - mostly - and now Jeremy felt reasonably confident in their ability to fully integrate Jean into their team. 

He couldn’t be everything for Jean. It wasn’t healthy for either of them.

So he started trying to put Jean in situations where he’d have to hang out with other people if he wanted to hang out with anyone. He went to dinner without Jean, forcing him to choose one of the other Trojans to go with, and went to practise without him on occasion. He still hung out with him after dinner and chatted freely with him in their room and during practise, but he did his best to make sure that Jean was interacting with other Trojans at least as much as him.

‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’ Alvarez asked uneasily one evening over dinner. 

Jeremy took a huge bite of his steak. ‘I’m sure,’ he said thickly, through a mouthful of food. ‘It’ll be good for him, and it’ll improve the team’s unity if they get to know him better off the court.’

‘He doesn’t look happy about it,’ Alvarez said. 

Jeremy shrugged, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling in his heart. ‘It’s an adjustment,’ he said. ‘I’m not crazy about it either.’

‘So then why - ’

‘Alvarez,’ Jeremy interrupted. ‘Enough, ok? It’ll work, and one day he might even thank me for it.’

Jeremy, as it turned out, was extremely wrong. When Jeremy tried to leave their room without Jean again that evening, Jean stopped him at the door. 

‘Do we have a problem?’ he asked, abruptly. His tone was sharp.

Jeremy shrugged innocently. ‘What? No, no problem. I’m just going out.’

Uncertainty intruded on Jean’s apparent annoyance. ‘It’s just that - ’

‘What?’

Jeremy had been banking on Jean’s pride being too great for him to admit his dependence on Jeremy, for Jean to take it in his stride and adapt. 

‘We usually do stuff together,’ Jean said. ‘And lately we don’t. I thought I might have pissed you off or something.’

Jeremy’s heart twisted in his chest; he really hadn’t expected that. 

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Jean, you haven’t done anything. I was just thinking that - well, maybe it might be better for you to hang out with other Trojans too, as well as me. I don’t think it’s healthy for you to just hang around me all the time. It’s not good for you, or the team.’

Jean actually took a step back. Jeremy ran frantically back over what he’d just said and found nothing wrong, so he frowned. ‘Jean - ‘

‘Fine,’ Jean said, and his voice was like ice. Jeremy’s heart sank as anger chased away the fleeting humiliation and upset on Jean’s face. ‘I won’t hang around you anymore.’

He brushed passed and Jeremy and left the room. The door closed behind him, and the soft click might as well have been a slam. 

‘Fuck,’ muttered Jeremy. 

The next week was utter crap. Their game against the Tigers came down to the wire; the Trojans only won because Connor scored a penalty at the last minute. Jean had given away three and gotten himself carded, and more than one Kansas player were nursing injuries and treading carefully around him.

‘Thought you had that Raven tamed,’ snapped Henry, the Tiger captain.

‘He’s fine,’ said Jeremy calmly, refusing to bite. 

‘That’s not fine,’ Henry said frankly, pointing his racquet at where Jean was leaving the court. Helmet off, his expression was icy and detached, and he glared at the Trojan subs almost worse than he had when he’d first arrived. Derisive, cold, mean. 

Alvarez approached him after they’d showered. 

‘You know what I’m gonna say.’

Jeremy sighed, feeling the weight of Jean’s misery on his shoulders as keenly as he was feeling his own. 

‘I fucked it up,’ he muttered, sitting down on the bench. ‘I was just trying to - ’

‘I know,’ Alvarez said gently, sitting down beside him. ‘But Jean knows his own mind, Jeremy. He’s not a baby, he didn’t imprint on you. He chose you, ok? He likes you. You shouldn’t have pushed him away.’

Jeremy knew she was right, and that he had to talk to Jean. The thing was, Jean was now almost as bad as when he’d first arrived. He wasn’t jumpy and looking for Riko around every corner, but he was treating the Trojans so bad that they were justified in thinking he hated them all over again. They didn’t know him well enough to see that Jean was furious at himself for allowing any of them in. It was far easier for Jean to hate them than to admit that he wanted to be one of them. Jeremy wasn’t sure how he fit into Jean’s mindset, but he knew that this regression was entirely his fault. Maybe Jean would have weaned himself off Jeremy on his own if given enough time. 

The next day the team treated themselves to a lie in. Jeremy lay in bed wide awake as Jean slept quietly across the room. He’d worn himself out last night, going for a run after the game and coming back almost dead on his feet. He’d ignored Jeremy and gone straight from the shower to bed. 

Jeremy got up and made coffee and toast, and when Jean still hadn’t emerged he consumed both by himself, a lonely breakfast that he didn’t feel like sharing with anyone but Jean. He could have wandered next door and gone for brunch with Connor and Tariq, or for a walk or to study with any of his other teammates, but instead he stared at the bedroom door and waited for Jean to come out. 

Jean was obviously expecting him to be gone when he emerged. He stumbled out of their room an hour later, eyes scrunched up in a yawn as he stretched his arms above his head. His t-shirt rode up as he did so, exposing his toned stomach, two white scars on his abdomen, and the beginning of a dark trail of hair. Jeremy swallowed. 

‘What are those from?’ he asked.

Jean startled, dropping his arms and raising his shoulders slightly. A defensive posture. 

‘What?’ he asked, taken aback. Jeremy indicated.

‘The scars on your stomach.’

Jean recovered enough to glare. ‘Knives,’ he snapped. He shook his head slightly, irritated, then stalked past where Jeremy sat to the coffee maker. 

‘So how was your week?’ Jeremy asked after a few moments of Jean rattling around in the corner. 

‘Fine,’ Jean said shortly, banging cupboards. 

‘Ok,’ Jeremy said, after a moment of awkward silence. ‘Well, mine was terrible.’

Jean didn’t answer. He poured his coffee and took a careful sip, then started to retreat towards the living room.

‘Jean,’ Jeremy said desperately, staring hard at the table. ‘Please stop punishing me.’

‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ Jean snapped. He didn’t stop.

‘Please,’ Jeremy said quietly. ‘I miss you.’

Jean’s footsteps halted in the doorway. Jeremy stared miserably at the table, unable to look at him out of guilt. 

‘I am just giving you what you wanted,’ Jean said levelly. ‘If you didn’t want - ’

‘I’m just trying to do right by you!’ Jeremy exploded, standing up so fast he knocked over his chair. ‘That’s all I’ve been trying to do since you got here. Jean, I just want what’s best for you. I want you to be happy, and I thought fully integrating you with the Trojans was the way to go, and I was an idiot and I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.’

Jean looked stunned. For the first time in a week, he forgot to look mean. 

Jeremy was breathing a little hard, but he stooped and picked up the chair and set it to rights. His hands clenched the back of it for a moment as he worked up the nerve to look Jean in the eye. 

Jean was shaking his head. ‘All you had to say …’ He trailed off, looking away in frustration. ‘I’ve never even - ‘ He stopped again. Then he looked Jeremy in the eye.

‘I miss you too.’

Jeremy’s shoulders slumped. ‘You don’t have to do everything I say,’ he said. ‘I know that I hurt you, that I offended you. It was just a suggestion, and I was wrong.’ He bit his lip, shaking his head. ‘I was just trying to do the right thing for you.’

Jean shrugged. ‘I think I know how to have friends at this point,’ he said wryly. ‘Did you ever think I was hanging out with you because I actually like you?’

Jeremy frowned. ‘But why just me and not the other - ’

‘You know you’re different, Jeremy,’ said Jean, sounding exasperated. 

Jeremy was confused now. ‘Because I’m your captain too?’ That would make sense. Riko had left Jean with a lot of issues with authority. 

But Jean only rolled his eyes. ‘Sure,’ he said, glancing away. ‘Whatever.’

Jeremy nodded slowly, feeling like he might have missed something there but that they were slowly approaching the same page again. 

‘Ok,’ he said slowly. ‘Uh, you wanna go for brunch?’

Jean eyed Jeremy’s plate. ‘Didn’t you just eat?’

Jeremy shrugged, grinning. ‘If we walk to the pancake place on Napier street I’ll have an appetite by the time we get there.’

Jean shrugged, looking like he was fighting against a smile. ‘Whatever.’

That was it in terms of conversation as they both got ready, but Jeremy bumped his shoulder against Jean’s companionably whenever they passed each other. 

Even though Jeremy was fairly sure Jean knew he wanted him around now, something changed between them after that. They still went to classes and meals and practise together, but sometimes Jeremy found himself alone with no Jean around, and no idea where he was. Then he’d come home and rummage through his Trojan’s rooms to say hi, and find Jean sitting with Connor and Tori watching old exy games, or find out that he’d gone for a run with Alvarez. Jeremy worried for approximately twenty four hours that this was more of the silent treatment and that Jean was still pissed off, but then Jean came home from a run and deliberately collapsed on Jeremy where he sat on the couch and played dead, forcing Jeremy to shove him off or suffocate. The next morning Jeremy put an ice cube down the back of Jean’s shirt and decided they were probably fine. 

Then sometimes Jean would come looking for him too. Jeremy had been finding the library more often, needing to use a lot of the reference books for his history assignments, and sometimes Jean would turn up there just to sit beside him. He’d read stuff for physics, but Jeremy knew Jean worked best at home, so he was likely just doing it for the company, which made Jeremy unbearably pleased. Often the Trojans would have a table already in the library, all of them working in companionably silence, occasionally drifting away in pairs for coffee. Jeremy watched Tori doodle some weird physics joke and slide it towards Jean, and everything from the lazy way Jean cast an eye over it, to the easy grin and muffled laugh when he got the joke, made Jeremy wish nothing but an eternity of hell on Riko for turning Jean into someone who had to figure out how to smile naturally again. 

The Trojan’s last game of the season was against the Arizona Coyotes, and it was a home game so the Trojans had already made plans to hit the town hard afterwards. Then they had a week of finals and a few days afterwards while the semester wound down to gather their things and head off home for Christmas break. Jeremy had been thinking seriously about asking Jean to come home with him, because he was fairly sure Jean was planning on checking into a hotel or something for as long as he had to wait until the dorms reopened. The other Trojans didn’t quite have the nerve to ask Jean to come home with them, and as Laila said pointedly ‘It shouldn’t be us, Jeremy.’

It was on the tip of his tongue every damn time he saw Jean, but the moment was never right. Jean was studying, or practising, or slumped on the couch exhausted from one or the other. And he was happy, Jeremy thought. They were both busy and spending more time than usual out of each other’s company, but when they found each other at lunch, or for a moment during practise, and at the end of every day, it was like a moment of relief each time. Even if Jeremy wasn’t tense he’d relax even more, unwinding in Jean’s presence. Jean would hold his gaze and smile a little, and they’d gravitate towards each other unfailingly. 

The Trojans exploded from the gate and hit the Coyotes hard from the off. Training harder this season to match the Foxes’ style of play, combined with some of the Raven drills they’d learned from Jean, had made the Trojans a formidable opponent by anyone’s standards, and truly the only teams they were concerned about were Penn, Edgar Allen, and the Foxes. They flattened the Coyotes 25-7, with everyone playing out of their skin. Jean and Alvarez were unstoppable at the back, Laila knocking their rebounds up to Jeremy. They were getting better at playing full halves now, but they still subbed where they could. They didn’t want to wear themselves out before they squared up to the Foxes, who now had five extra players who could also play full halves, according to Renee. 

The Trojans surged off the court in high spirits, having been in control of the game from the start. They knocked helmets in outer court before Jeremy hauled Alvarez off to do press. They smiled for the cameras and promised an even better second half of the season in the new year, laughing at the (accurate) comment that they’d been inspired by the Foxes into working harder. 

‘Kevin Day’s inspirational, I won’t lie,’ Jeremy grinned. ‘It’s a smart style of play, but it’s difficult to implement when you’ve got a whole bench of subs dying to get as much time on the court as they can. We’re trying to rotate without changing the feel of the team too much, so there have been some teething problems.’

‘Doesn’t look like it from where we’re standing,’ said the reporter, flashing him a glittering smile. ‘Certainly no more problems in the back. Your new backliner really made a few Coyotes feel welcome.’

Alvarez laughed. ‘There’s no ignoring Jean Moreau,’ she said. 

‘Would you say he’s something of a secret weapon when you go up against the Ravens?’

Jeremy didn’t like those kinds of questions, but he kept his smile easy and shrugged like it wasn’t an issue. ‘Honestly, who knows? They’ve played with him more than we have, when you think about it. But Jean’s learned a thing or two from us too, and he’s not the same person he was at Edgar Allen.’

Player. He meant to say player. 

‘What’s changed?’ the reporter pressed, and Jeremy felt a flutter of nerves.

‘I think Jean will show them himself on the court,’ he said, a well-practised tone of finality in his voice, with a smile to go with it. 

Once they were dismissed, Alvarez cornered him in the tunnel.

‘Have you asked him yet?’

‘No,’ muttered Jeremy, mood immediately tanking. The post-game adrenalin was wearing off and now all he could think about was Jean. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow. I promise.’

‘Good,’ said Alvarez frankly. ‘Because Laila is two steps away from forcing him to third-wheel our vacation to Vale with her parents, and he’ll say no and she’ll feel guilty and I’ll have to kill you, Jeremy.’

Jeremy grinned. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. 

‘Good,’ said Alvarez, slinging an arm around his shoulder and tugging him towards the changing rooms. ‘Take him home to your farm, make him sit on a bale of hay and hold a chicken. It’ll do him the world of good.’

That was a pleasant image, one that Jeremy held in his head while he showered and changed. Not so much the chicken, but Jean in his home, content and wandering about with Jeremy, playing exy in the field next door and driving into town for dinner, eating ice cream and waking up to the sounds of Jeremy’s sisters chasing the ducks. Mind wandering, he imagined Jean barefoot in Jeremy’s bedroom, footsteps almost silent on the worn wooden boards as he crossed the floor and climbed into bed beside him. 

The Trojans rolled up to Kerbs, the biggest club within stumbling distance of campus, and everyone immediately did shots. Jean could take them like no one else; he almost looked elegant, while the others spilled them over their wrists and down their chins, wincing at the taste. Jean set his glass back down and spun it, smirking at Jeremy. 

Jeremy lost count of the amount of drinks people bought him. He was a people person, and the faces that came up to him and grinned and congratulated him and bought him a drink buoyed him up to the point where he was only deflated when he realised he couldn’t find Jean. 

He made his way up to the rooftop smoking area, because Jean liked to smoke when he drank, but he only found Tori and Connor there, making out.

‘Spotted,’ Jeremy muttered, grinning and snapping a photo. It wouldn’t go farther than the Trojan group chat, because this had been a fucking long time coming and Jeremy was nice like that. ‘Got em.’

Jean wasn’t in the toilets, and he wasn’t at either of the four bars. Jeremy turned away more faces when they said they hadn’t seen him, and the alcohol narrowed his point of focus down to just finding him. He wanted to be near him so damn badly he almost had tunnel vision. A quiet desperation entered his heart as he did a third lap of the club. Had Jean gone back to the dorms, alone or - Jean’s heart sank - with someone else? That should have been good news, but drunk and alone Jeremy could only admit that it made him sick to think of Jean with anyone else. 

He pushed on to the dance floor and tried to lose himself. He was handed a drink and he knocked it back without looking to see what it was. A hand found his and started to pull him from the crush, and his head was swimming too much to fight it. Bodies moved out of his way, and by the time he dragged his head up to meet Jean’s eyes they were out of the crowd and standing off to the side, underneath the overhang of the second floor. 

Jean’s hand held his, and pulled him close. His eyes were dark and his hair was pushed back, and he grinned at Jeremy as the music boomed in their ears. Jeremy bit his lip, dangerously close to losing control. He reached out and grabbed Jean’s hips and pulled him close, heart beating as hard as the bass in his ears. They bumped together and Jean’s breathing hitched as Jeremy’s fingers dug into him. He couldn’t look him in the eye so he traced the shape of Jean’s lips, wanting to devour every soft curve. 

Jean’s hands came up tentatively, and brushed Jeremy’s. The touch brought Jeremy slamming back to full consciousness, and he realised he was drunkenly making a move on his equally drunk backliner, who might feel like he couldn’t say no. 

‘Sorry,’ he muttered, for all the good it would do. ‘Shit, sorry - ’

It was awful to pull away, but Jeremy had ruined this all by himself and how had to deal with it. Jean looked utterly confused, but Jeremy could only apologise and push his way back through the crowd, muttering sorry to the people he dislodged. 

He spent the rest of the night consuming everything that was put into his hand, and had to be carried home by Alvarez and Tariq.

‘Where the hell is Jean?’ muttered Tariq as they staggered down the campus road. The sky was just beginning to lighten. ‘Shouldn’t he be doing this?’

Jeremy snorted, head lolled to one side. ‘Fucked that up, didn’t I?’

Alvarez and Tariq exchanged worried glances. Laila, walking ahead with Tori, looked back too. 

‘I haven’t seen him,’ she said, answering Alvarez’s unasked question. A tiny frown creased her brow.

Jean turned up with the dawn. Jeremy was semi-conscious and suffering from the spins at around 6am when the door creaked open. Jean made his way across the suite, and Jeremy listened to him toe off his shoes, drop his jacket and keys, and shoulder open the bedroom door. If Jeremy had been capable of opening his mouth without throwing up he would have said something, but thankfully Jean pretended Jeremy wasn’t even there. He slipped out of his clothes and disappeared under the covers, and Jeremy passed out soon after that, staring at the back of Jean’s head. 

Morning came and brought genuine thoughts of the afterlife. Jeremy spent two hours wrapped around the toilet bowl, head spinning so badly he kept falling over backwards and hitting himself off the shower. Laila turned up around midday, and Jeremy heard Jean stumble out of the bedroom to let her in. 

‘Wow. How’s our fearless leader?’ she asked, sounding amused and in rude health; Laila couldn’t drink for health reasons and was generally a good sport when it came to the other Trojan’s being hungover, so Jean must have looked really bad. 

‘Still drunk,’ replied Jean. ‘Sounds like a two-dayer.’

Jeremy groaned and retched again. He took his head out of the bowl long enough to hear both of them laughing. 

‘Can I shower in your room?’ Jean asked. ‘I feel like moving him might be dangerous.’

‘Sure, I’ll stay here.’

He heard her sit down outside the bathroom door, and could only be thankful that Alvarez wasn’t with her.

‘Jeremy?’

Jeremy closed his eyes, and regretted it immediately as the world began spinning again. ‘No,’ he said weakly. ‘He’s not here.’

Laila snorted. ‘For real, are you ok?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jeremy?’

‘Laila, I’m dying. Please leave me to die.’

‘Jean will be back soon.’

Jeremy leaned his head back against the shower. 

‘He looks about as bad as you sound,’ Laila commented, making Jeremy smile. ‘Which for Jean is pretty drastic. I think he’s going to drown himself in the shower.’

Jeremy personally wanted to stand under a cold shower until he passed out, so he could understand that impulse. 

‘Maybe he’ll stay away,’ muttered Jeremy. ‘Wouldn’t blame him.’

Laila paused. ‘You know he won’t,’ she said quietly. 

That Jeremy was still drunk was obvious; there hadn’t physically been enough time for his body to process that much alcohol. He also figured it out from the fact that he heard himself asking Laila when she’d known she’d liked Alvarez. 

‘Um, kind of straight away?’ she said. ‘Maybe like two weeks after we met and started hanging out properly.’

‘Did you know she was gay?’

‘Not immediately.’

‘And when did you know that she liked you back?’

Jeremy could hear the smile in Laila’s voice. ‘It was in the little things. I could feel her watching me cross the room. And she’d come find me, talk to me, and she’d really listen, you know? There was a way she smiled at me…’ Laila trailed off. ‘I suppose we just got along too well to ignore it.’

Jeremy didn’t have anything to say to that, because they were both thinking the same damn thing anyways. 

Laila went away after that, having made her point. She probably went to comfort Alvarez, and Jeremy felt an unpleasant ache in his chest because he wanted to comfort someone too. 

He remained chained to the bowl for another hour and a half, at which point his brain was screaming at him to acknowledge that Jean hadn’t returned and that Jeremy was also badly dehydrated and probably about to faint, so walking became a priority. Jeremy had never let himself get this drunkbefore, even with a break stretching ahead of him. It just wasn’t good for the body; ever inch of him ached as he tried to sweat out the alcohol. 

He put away about a litre of water before collapsing back into bed, fielding all calls and sending a simple picture of a gravestone to the Trojan group chat to let them know that he was, in fact, dead. 

Jean came back around 3pm, at which point Jeremy jerked out of his fitful sleep. He was approaching the beginnings of a hangover, and his head was pounding so badly he could hardly see, but he lifted it anyways when Jean came into their room.

‘Hey.’

Jeremy managed something like a zombie groan, and Jean laughed. 

‘Figured I should check that you weren’t actually dead,’ he said quietly, sitting down on his own bed and lying back, pulling out his phone.

‘Not avoiding me then?’ Jeremy mumbled into the pillow.

Jean hesitated. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I was talking to Alvarez, and I wanted to - ‘

‘I’m sorry, you don’t have to say it,’ Jeremy sighed. ‘I know being drunk is not an excuse but I never should have - you know. I got carried away and it wasn’t fair.’

Jean didn’t respond, and Jeremy couldn’t bear to peek and risk seeing anything like relief on Jean’s face. 

‘Right,’ Jean said finally. He sat up again and swung his legs around so he was sitting on the edge of his bed. Jeremy turned his head sideways so he could at least be looking somewhere in the vicinity of Jean when he spoke to him. 

‘Jeremy,’ Jean said levelly. ‘Can we be honest for a moment?’

‘Uhhh…’

‘You made a move on me last night.’

‘Uhhh…’

‘Yes you did. Shut up,’ said Jean impatiently. ‘I’m asking why you stopped.’

Of all the ways Jeremy imagined them having this conversation, none of them had involved swallowing down vomit. 

‘Please hold that thought,’ he whispered, sliding off the bed, wobbling dangerous. ‘Please oh my god please don’t go away.’

He barely made it to the bathroom. After fifteen minutes of punishment he brushed his teeth twice and emerged to an empty room. 

‘Right,’ he croaked. ‘Right, fuck this.’

Jeremy was not a violent person. The only time he ever got rough was on the court, and most people would claim that they’d never heard him raise his voice in anger. He was, by all accounts, a pretty chill guy. But the Jeremy who dragged his ass out of the dorms and down the steps with a declaration of love building inside his struggling brain was a whole other animal.

He bumped into Connor who was coming in from outside, phone to his ear. 

‘Hey,’ said Jeremy. ‘You seen Jean?’

Maybe Jeremy looked slightly mad or maybe he really did resemble a corpse, because Connor’s eyes went wide as he pointed out to the lawn in front of the Trojan building. 

‘I was just about to call you,’ he said, lowering his hand. Jeremy was several impaired as it was so he it took him a moment to catch Connor’s tone. 

‘Ok - what? Why?’

Connor bit his lip, then nodded out the doors. ‘Look.’

Jeremy pushed open the doors, wincing at the California sun that never quit, even in winter. His eyes scanned the grounds, searching for Jean. Then he spotted the two tall figures standing at the gates, and his heart crashed to a stop in his chest. For a moment, he thought he really might be dying. 

A Japanese man in a dark suit was speaking to Jean. His hands were folded behind his back, and Jean was holding a letter in his hand. Jeremy couldn’t see his expression from here, but his shoulders were stiff with tension and his whole posture looked incredibly stressed and anxious. Jeremy could read Jean like a fucking map; the fear in every line of his body made Jeremy want to throw up again. 

His feet remained rooted to the spot while they spoke. He wanted to go up to the man and shove him away, then grab Jean and put him in his car and drive them so far away that even their memories faded with the sun. 

He waited until the man left, disappearing in a black car, before approaching Jean. The hangover was nothing now; the feeling of dread gnawing away at his insides had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with the devastated look on Jean’s face. 

‘Jean.’

He looked up, startled. The look in his eyes was wild, disorientated. He looked like he’d been hit by a bus. 

Jeremy’s heart twisted painfully in his chest. ‘What is it?’

Jean sucked in a ragged breath, and thrust out the letter. Jeremy could see small scrawled handwriting in almost indecipherable French, and another piece of printed paper. Jeremy took them wordlessly, continuing to stare at Jean.

‘What is -’

‘They want me to come home.’

The words were coughed out, hoarsely, and Jeremy felt like he’d gotten the breath knocked out of him.

‘Wh - what?’ he managed, head spinning. ‘What? Home? As in …?’

‘Marseilles,’ Jean breathed. ‘France. Home.’

It was too much for Jeremy, but he tried so hard to smile and look pleased because the look on Jean’s face was just staggering. It was like all the lights had come on behind his eyes. 

‘That’s amazing,’ he said, voice sounding horribly fake. ‘Jean, that’s fantastic! For - for how long? For the holidays, or - ?’

‘Yeah, yeah, the holidays,’ Jean said, taking the letter back and skimming it again. ‘I leave tomorrow. My mother, she - ’ He stopped, and suddenly pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. It was shaking. 

‘Hey,’ Jeremy said softly, taking his hand and tugging it away. Jean was biting his lip and blinking, and apparently it was finally sinking in. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’

Jean didn’t pull away, but shook his head. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t know - fuck. Fuck!’ He yanked his hand away and took a step back, the letter getting scrunched up in his hand. ‘Fuck.’ He thrust the paper out. ‘Take this, please. Put it upstairs.’

‘Jean - ’

‘Please, Jeremy!’ Jean’s hand was really shaking now, so Jeremy darted forward and took the paper before he dropped it. 

‘Go on,’ he said quietly, jerking his head. ‘But come back later, ok? Please.’

Jean nodded shakily, then turned and walked out of the gates. Everything in Jeremy’s body ached to follow him. Knowing how much pain he was in and doing nothing was almost intolerable, but Jean could barely handle his own thoughts right now, let alone the intrusion of someone else’s. 

So he crawled back to their room to drop off Jean’s letter and what turned out to be his plane ticket. It was dated for the day after tomorrow, with the return on the same day Jeremy was due back from Oklahoma. He didn’t want to read the letter, but his eyes picked up a few phrases. Jean would probably tell him it was good practise. The letter seemed impersonal, and the Moriyama’s were mentioned in terms of permission. Because of course they’d had to go through the Moriyama’s first in order to see their son. Jeremy wondered how long they’d been waiting for this chance, or if they were just planning on berating Jean for leaving the Ravens. Privately, Jeremy did not think very highly of Jean’s parents. He didn’t care how bad things were, you didn’t sell your own kid to sort out the problems you made for yourself. 

He passed the word around quietly so that the Trojans all knew, and warned them not to talk about it before he’d seen Jean and gauged the situation. He was terrified that this would be a setback for Jean, just fucking terrified. When Jean didn’t come back by dinner time, Jeremy was almost tearing his hair out. 

‘Please eat something,’ Laila said, tugging on his sleeve. ‘I’ll bring you soup. I’ll literally pour it down your throat. You’re running on fumes, Jeremy.’

But even if he hadn’t been hungover and weak, his stomach was too tied up in knots to think about food. He paced his room for an hour, then started wandering around campus. It wasn’t until Coach texted him saying that someone had let themselves into the exy court ten minutes ago and what the hell was he doing letting his players on to the court hungover and tired from the game the previous day, that Jeremy realised where Jean had gone. 

He found him in the Trojan training gear, whacking balls at cones. Jeremy stood watching him at first, dazzled as usual by his accuracy and the power in his strike. Jean rebounded balls off increasingly tight and difficult angles, hitting the cones off their marks every time. It wasn’t until Jeremy saw that his swings were becoming loose and he was hitting the ball too hard that he decided it was time to intervene before Jean blew out his arms. 

He snap of the lock opening on the court made Jean pause, but then he took another swing. The noise of the ball hitting the wall was so loud it hurt Jeremy’s ears. 

‘Jean,’ he called, crossing the court warily - he wasn’t wearing any armour - ‘Stop.’

Jean ignored him, reaching for another ball. This one dented the cone and sent it flying. 

‘Jean!’ Jeremy called again, impatient but trying to keep his tone light. ‘This is your captain speaking. Put the racquet down, please.’

Jean didn’t, or couldn’t. His breathing was loud, and fast. Too fast. 

Shit, thought Jeremy. He tried to approach Jean without getting brained by the racquet, but he was so damn fast with it. He darted off the court and returned with a practise racquet, almost running. Jean didn’t even notice him until Jeremy met his swing with his own. The racquets connected with a crash that Jeremy felt all the way up his arms. Jean grunted in pain and dropped the racquet, and Jeremy immediately threw his aside too and kicked the bucket of balls away. 

Jean ripped off his helmet with some difficulty; it fell from his limp fingers, and Jeremy could see now how bad things were. Jean was pale, and hardly even sweating, so he was seriously dehydrated. His eyes were wide and his breathing was harsh, and coming too fast. 

‘Hey,’ Jeremy said, closing the space between them and touching his arm. ‘Jean, breathe.’

But Jean wasn’t having any of it. He ripped off his throat guard and his gloves, flinging them away. Jeremy grabbed his wrist, fingers gripping the material of the rash vest Jean wore under his armour. It clung to his body, and Jeremy could see his chest heaving. 

‘Breathe,’ he whispered, pulling him close. ‘It’s ok. It’s ok.’

Jean sank to his knees and Jeremy went with him. 

‘She was pregnant,’ Jean said hoarsely, dragging in tortured breaths. ‘When I left. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.’ His voice tailed off in a bitter, mirthless laugh that was more of a cough. ‘I’m so fucking scared. My parents … what will they think of me?’

It was all Jeremy could do not to wrap his arms around Jean and tell him he didn’t have to leave, that he could stay right here with him forever. He reached out and touched Jean’s shoulder gently, trying to ground him. 

‘Jean,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. I don’t know what they’ll think. All I know is that the person you turned into is someone anyone would be proud to call their son.’ He took Jean’s face in his hands and gazed into his wild eyes, trying to be as solid and sincere as Jean needed him to be. ‘Not one of us expected you, Jean. You took everyone by surprise. The whole team is proud of you, and I’m - I am so fucking proud of you, ok? I - ’

Jean stopped his words with a kiss, a desperate press of lips that lasted for just a moment, just long enough for Jeremy to respond, to show Jean he felt it too. They parted slowly, and Jeremy kept Jean’s face between his hands as he pressed their foreheads together. Now both their breathing was loud. His thumbs stroked Jean’s cheekbones as he held him, knowing that Jean just needed someone to be there for him right now. Maybe the kiss really did mean something, but it couldn’t be anything more than comfort right now. Jeremy didn’t care. He’d give anything to Jean, he realised, his heart crashing away in his chest. Anything. 

‘You’re not his anymore,’ Jeremy whispered, hands caressing his face. ‘You’re mine.’

Jean was nodding, eyes closed, and Jeremy could hear his breathing returning to normal. 

‘You’re mine,’ Jeremy said again. ‘You’re coming back to USC, to the Trojans. To me. You’re coming back, and this won’t change who you are.’ He pulled back a little to smile at Jeremy. ‘You might even like it. You’re always complaining California isn’t hot enough for you.’

Jean hesitated, then nodded again. ‘Yeah,’ he said, and the note of hope in his voice almost killed Jeremy. ‘Maybe.’

They stayed on their knees until they got sore and then a little longer, sharing this private, quiet space where time didn’t exist and it was just the two of them. Then they got up and Jean went to the showers and Jeremy pressed his forehead against the glass of the court wall and tried to convince himself that he wasn’t afraid. 

They headed back to the dorms in silence. Jean was presumably starving, so they stopped for some noodles and ate them as they walked. Jeremy’s stomach was finally prepared to accept food but he ate slowly, just in case. Jean wolfed his, then finished Jeremy’s, wielding chopsticks expertly despite his tired hands. Jeremy needed a fork for his.

Even though he’d spent most of the day lying down, Jeremy was as exhausted as Jean was. They stopped by a few rooms to say hi, and Jean graciously let people hug him and tell him they were thrilled for him, and how jealous they were that he’d be in France while they were stuck in various hick towns around the country. While Jean seemed a bit on edge, he didn’t appear to be bored or derisive of their kind words. But Jeremy dragged him back to their room before long. 

That night, they lay in their beds in silence, each waiting for the other to speak. 

‘When I saw him,’ Jean said suddenly, voice barely above a whisper. ‘Ichirou’s man - I thought it was over. You know?’

Jeremy stared across at his barely outlined figure in the darkness. Jean was lying on his side, looking at him. 

‘I did too,’ Jeremy confessed, not sure if it was wise or not but owing it to Jean to be honest. ‘I was afraid.’

‘I’m still afraid.

Jeremy pushed himself up slightly. ‘Why? Of what?’

Jean rolled over on to his back and spoke to the ceiling. ‘Everything,’ he said bluntly. ‘What they’ll do, what they’ll say. I don’t know what happened to them, after I left. And after I left Edgar Allen … I broke their deal, Jeremy.’

Jean’s voice wasn’t panicked, but it was low and resigned and it stirred something deep inside Jeremy. He sat up fully. 

‘Jean,’ he said, forgetting to whisper. ‘You didn’t leave Edgar Allen, ok? You were transferred, and it was - it was their own fault. Ichirou knows this. He let you go.’

Jeremy knew that Jean knew this. He knew that the Moriyama’s weren’t who he was afraid of. If they hadn’t made a move for Kevin yet, why would they bother coming for Jean?

‘Your parents will understand,’ Jeremy said softly. ‘And if they don’t - well, fuck them. It’s not forever. I - ‘ he hesitated. ‘I was actually going to ask you to come home with me for Christmas.’

The resulting silence was deafening, so he added quickly, ‘So, you know, if France is horrible and you can’t find a good bagel place anywhere, you can just hop on a plane and come to Oklahoma.’

Jean didn’t respond to this either. Jeremy started to wonder whether it would be kinder on both of them to just pretend that Jean had fallen asleep, when he spoke.

‘That sounds … really nice.’

Jeremy was struck dumb more by the wistfulness of his tone than anything else. In that moment, Jeremy wanted him bad. He dug his hands into the bedsheets.

‘Jean,’ he said.

Jean didn’t reply, so Jeremy said it again, more insistently. ‘Tell me you know it’s going to be ok. You’re a Trojan and that’s that.’

‘And if they try to make me a Raven again? What then?’

Jeremy was abruptly sick of this conversation. He’d spent the guts of a year on the outskirts of the conversation about the Moriyama’s, having to rely on Kevin’s word and Neil’s cagey summary of events to reassure him that his backliner wasn’t going to be snatched away the moment he took his eye off him. He hadn’t pressured them for too many details, knowing that it was a painful subject that he didn’t have the right to ask them to relive, but now that it came to reassuring Jean and making him feel better, Jeremy severely disliked not having all of the facts. 

‘Didn’t we discuss this already?’ he said, climbing out of bed. Silencing the part of his brain that panicked about rejection and overstepping boundaries, he crossed over to Jean’s bed and climbed on top of him. Jean made a surprised ‘Oof’ as Jeremy sat down on his middle, then lowered his body down until they were almost nose to nose. He pinned his wrists to the bed and said ‘I’m going to say this one more time. You’re coming back here, where you belong. If there’s even the smallest doubt in your mind that they’re going to let you come back, you call me. I’ll handcuff us together if I have to.’ He squeezed Jean’s wrists for emphasis. ‘You hear me?’

Jean, unbelievably, was smiling. ‘Heard you the first time, actually. Just wanted to hear you say it again.’

Jeremy blinked, then felt his whole body relax as the tension left his limbs. Jean was warm beneath him, the sheets only a thin layer between their bodies. He freed his hands and brought them up to touch Jeremy’s sides, and he hummed deep in his throat as Jeremy shivered under his touch. 

‘Guess I’ll have to come back then,’ Jean said. He sat up, pushing Jeremy back until he was straddling his lap. Now Jean was all in his space, head slightly tilted and eyes bright in the darkness. The light of the street lamp filtered through their window, catching one side of Jean’s face and shadowing the other. 

Jeremy swallowed hard as Jean’s hands slid up Jeremy’s thighs. Jeremy’s hands, now free, moved up almost involuntarily to Jean’s face, holding him as he had before. 

‘Because if it’s you I’m coming back to,’ Jean continued, voice a deep, gorgeous murmur. ‘You, like this…’

Jeremy’s breathing hitched as Jean’s lips ghosted across his, and he couldn’t stop himself from closing the gap between them.

Their lips met, and Jeremy opened his mouth in a gasp as he felt Jean’s body surge up to meet his, hands tightening on his thighs before moving to encircle his body, drawing him close. Jeremy kept his hands on Jean’s face, holding them together. They kissed like they never wanted to breathe again. Jeremy opened his mouth for Jean and let him in. He let him run his hands over his back and down his sides, slipping his tongue into his mouth and making him moan softly. Jeremy wrapped his arms around Jean’s neck and just clung to him, letting himself forget every rule he’d made about doing exactly this, because this was what Jean wanted and it felt pretty fucking perfect to him. He’d spent the whole semester getting it wrong when it came to Jean; maybe he should finally start listening to him instead. 

Jean leaned back and pulled Jeremy down with him. Jeremy stretched out over him, every bit of him delighting in Jean’s touch, the way he held him close and kissed him. He tugged on Jeremy’s lip, mouth quirking up into a quick smile before he kissed Jeremy’s jaw, then worked his way down his neck. The touch of his lips sent fierce shivers of electricity down Jeremy’s limbs, and his breath came in weak little gasps.

Jean reached between them and Jeremy stiffened, but he was only pulling away the sheets from between them. Then he flipped them and pressed Jeremy into the mattress, and Jeremy’s brain dissolved for the next half hour or so as Jean took him apart with his mouth and his hands. Jeremy’s lips felt numb, his body red hot and alive. He arched into Jean’s touch, throwing his head back when Jean bit the soft skin of his neck, sucking a bruise on the surface before dragging his lips down to his collarbone. Jeremy buried his hands in Jean’s hair as he went lower, hands skimming the planes of his chest under his t-shirt before tugging it off, his own quick to follow. The darkness made everything seem like a dream, something hazy and fast that Jeremy couldn’t make sense of, but then Jean’s mouth was on his skin and his hands were sliding lower, and Jeremy had to reach back with one hand and grip the headboard.

Jeremy couldn’t be anything but a talker, and he moaned and breathed Jean’s name and clutched at his hair helplessly as he was enveloped in the impossibly wet heat of Jean’s mouth. Knowing that Jean wanted this as bad as Jeremy did made the sensation of his tongue sliding down the length of Jeremy’s cock almost unbearable; he kept trying to sit up to see, because he could hardly believe it. Jean pushed him back down with a firm hand, and Jeremy could feel him smiling. 

When Jean returned to him, crawling back up Jeremy’s now limp body, he found Jeremy’s mouth with his own, and Jeremy thrilled at the taste. They kissed softly for a few minutes, and then Jeremy reached between them.

‘You don’t have to,’ Jean breathed, though his whole body was trembling and Jeremy could feel him hard against his hip.

‘Shut up, Moreau,’ Jeremy said against his lips. He rubbed his hand slowly against Jean, feeling him go tense, his breathing shortening. He stretched out beneath him leisurely, feeling sated and happy and ready to tease.

‘You like that?’ he murmured, palming the hard length of him. ‘Yeah you do.’ His lips brushed Jean’s, and he could feel Jean’s arm trembling as he held himself over Jeremy’s body. He kissed Jean gently, tiny presses of his lips coaxing little noises from him, and making sounds of encouragement. He let Jean lower almost all of his weight on to him before he pulled him out and stroked him slowly. Jean shivered, and Jeremy nuzzled into his neck.

‘You feel so good,’ he told him, between kisses. ‘Fuck, you’re so hard.’

Jean tugged Jeremy’s head back by his hair, hard, and bit a hot kiss into his neck as Jeremy stroked him, working his thumb over the tip and occasionally making little sounds in his throat as Jean covered him in bruises. The heat between them was incredible, and when Jeremy felt Jean thrust into his hand a little he couldn’t hold back a groan of pleasure. 

‘Fuck yeah,’ he breathed. ‘Do that again.’

Jean did, and this time he was the one groaning into Jeremy’s mouth. Jeremy hooked a leg around Jean’s waist as he fucked his fist, and he felt his name on Jean’s lips when he came. 

Nothing could have prised Jean from Jeremy’s arms at that moment. He wrapped himself around Jean and held him, turning them sideways so he could press his body to Jean’s and bury his head in the crook of his neck. He pressed gently kisses to his oversensitive skin as he breathed through his orgasm, coming back to himself slowly. His arm went around Jeremy’s body and Jeremy hooked a leg over Jean’s, and they were messy and exhausted and so wonderfully tangled up in each other. 

Jeremy whispered things in Jean’s ear that he would find hard to say tomorrow, words that could only be found in this quiet, private space between them in the dark. Jean fell asleep in his arms, and Jeremy spent the whole night staring at him, dreading the dawn but unable to find any fear or anxiety in his heart. Because Jean was his, and Jean was coming back to him. 

 

Jean’s flight was the next evening, and he refused to allow anyone to drive him to the airport.

‘Every damn one of you would make a scene,’ he told the complaining masses over breakfast. ‘No, especially you Jeremy. I’m calling an uber.’

They’d woken up wrapped in each other’s arms, drenched in the sunlight shining through the open window, and Jean had kissed his nose and let Jeremy stretch out like a cat in his arms, grinning like a fool and wrapping his arms around Jean’s neck. For all his general complaining about the Trojans and their hugging, Jean sure was enthusiastic when it was Jeremy pressed up against him.

Jeremy sat beside him at the Trojan’s favourite breakfast diner and secretly thrilled at the press of Jean’s thigh against his. He was sure Laila could tell - someone must be able to see the literal halo around his head right now - but he was doing his best to focus on the team, and making sure no one was sharing his anxieties about Jean. At least, not where Jean could pick up on it. 

Jeremy hung around as Jean packed, the others floating in and out to say their goodbyes and arrange dinner plans with Jeremy before they all went their separate ways the following day. Jean bid them all cursory goodbye, promising to reply to texts and snapchats, and then Jeremy realised that it was almost his turn. 

‘Where’s my - there it is,’ muttered Jean, checking again to make sure he had his passport. It was in Jeremy’s hands at that moment, the dark red of the European Union very different to Jeremy’s own blue one. He idly flipped through it as Jean did a last sweep of their suite.

‘Ok,’ he said finally, standing in the doorway of their room. Jeremy looked up at him; he was twitchy, hair was slightly ruffled from running his hands through it. He was wearing dark jeans and a black t-shirt, and he looked tired but… was that excitement? A genuine desire to go? Jeremy was ready to smile at him, but then he started to tug on Jeremy’s faded red USC hoody, the one he’d meant to replace a thousand times but couldn’t bring himself to throw out his very first piece of Trojan gear, and Jeremy felt his heart crash down dead in his chest. 

‘Do you mind?’ Jean asked, zipping it up halfway. ‘Planes are always cold.’ He looked up and frowned at Jeremy, who didn’t know what his face looked like but he was fairly sure he was experiencing genuine heartbreak right now, so it must have been pretty pathetic. 

‘What?’ Jean asked, taking a step forward, real concern creasing his brow. ‘Jeremy?’

Jeremy looked down at the passport, setting it on the table beside him, next to Jean’s phone and keys. 

‘I’m gonna miss you, is all,’ he said, looking anywhere but at Jean.

There was a pause.

‘I’m coming back,’ Jean reminded him.’

Jeremy just nodded vigorously at his feet. 

Then Jean was right there in front of him, and Jeremy couldn’t breathe because Jean took his hands in his and held them to his mouth. He pressed his lips to Jeremy’s knuckles, eyes squeezing shut for a second as he kissed them, then looked him in the eye.

‘I’m coming back to you.’

Jeremy swallowed hard over the lump in his throat and managed to find his smile at last. 

‘Well, you’d better,’ he said. ‘Or Kevin Day will fucking murder me.’

Jean kissed him hard on the mouth and Jeremy went willingly into his arms so Jean could make his promises. The touch of his lips made Jeremy dizzy, infusing every inch of him with electricity and pure, vibrant happiness that defied everything that Jeremy’s brain tried to tell him. Jean pulled back just to look at Jeremy, his hands sliding up to hold his face so damn gently. Jeremy fisted his hands in the front of the borrowed sweater and just gazed at him, drinking in this last look. The winter sunshine streamed in through the window, lighting up the sides of their faces and making Jean’s eyes appear golden. 

Just looking at him was enough to infuse his body with warmth and bring a smile to his face. They spent an age like that, a wondrous, unending moment for just the two of them, leaning towards each other and pressing the softest of kisses to lips, cheeks, jawlines. Their eyes darted across each other’s faces, examining, savouring. Jeremy smiled as Jean brushed their noses together. They kissed again, and when they broke apart Jeremy pressed their foreheads together, and he could feel Jean trembling. He rested one hand on Jean’s shoulder and used the other to hold the back of his neck gently. Jean shivered under his touch, and something about the movement drew them irresistibly back together. This time Jeremy opened his mouth and let Jean taste him. His hands clutched at Jeremy’s hips and pulled him close as their breathing picked up, becoming ragged as the kissed deepened. Everything became a very distant blur for Jeremy, fading into microscopic unimportance. All he could feel, smell, taste, was Jean. He was drunk on the press of him against his body. 

The ringing of Jean’s phone made his body jerk and clutch Jeremy tighter in reaction. Jeremy gasped out of the kiss as Jean dug his phone out of his pocket, their heartbeats pounding against each other’s. 

‘Oui?’ he snapped, one arm tightening around Jeremy possessively. Jeremy, the shock wearing off, decided now was a good time to kiss Jean’s neck. ‘Oh - yeah, sorry. I’ll be right down - uh, two minutes.’

Jeremy didn’t say anything. He pressed his face into Jean’s neck and closed his eyes tight for a second, then looked up. 

‘Time to go,’ he said softly, still warm in Jean’s arms. Jean looked down at him and there wasn’t a trace of fear in his eyes, so Jeremy tried to gather that same courage. 

Pulling away from each other was horrible, and Jeremy didn’t bother trying to look like it wasn’t. He helped Jean carry his stuff downstairs and watched him put it into the trunk of the car. Two bags, including his carry-on. Jean still owned fuck all, but he was wearing Jeremy’s hoody. Red, proud, USC. 

Then Jean was hugging him so tightly, and Jeremy buried his face against his shoulder and pretended for ten seconds that nothing else was happening.

Jean dragged his lips across Jeremy’s mouth, pressing hard for a moment, then whispered ‘Je reviendrai’ against his lips. Jeremy didn’t dare close his eyes, holding his gaze even as he got into the car and closed the door. Then he was gone. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Jeremy woke up the next morning to a text from Jean that simply read ‘Two brothers’. He sat up so fast he nearly fell out of bed. 

The next two weeks were a blur for Jeremy. Half his time was spent with his family, playing exy with his sisters, being overfed by his mother and working on the perennially “in-progress” Buick ’88 in his dad’s garage. He loved being home; in the usual Knox tradition they shared everything, and his mother was already planning on knitting Jean a sweater. 

‘He doesn’t need it, honestly,’ Jeremy told her. ‘He belongs in the desert, he swears California’s not hot enough for him.’

‘Get him out here in July chasing the snakes out of the henhouse,’ his father called from the living room, voice slightly muffled as he held his glasses in his mouth. ‘That’ll sort him.’

Jeremy grinned at his phone. ‘Sure am trying, dad.’

The other half of him was with Jean, in France. Jeremy had never been out of the country so he demanded at least 50% communication in snapchats. Jean was as predictable as he was lovely; his snaps were of the sunset over the water, a cat on a street lit by an early-morning dawn, and really nice cars. In some wonderful, hilarious ironic twist of fate, Jean’s parents had apparently bent over backwards for years trying to win their son back. Jean rang him late on the first day, sounding absolutely exhausted. Jeremy had just arrived at home but he’d run straight out of the room to take the call. Jean’s mother had held him for ten minutes while his father cried, and then they’d swapped. His little brothers, Alexandre and Sebastien, didn’t know him yet, but his mother assured him they would. Sebastien was only five, and Jean sounded utterly smitten with both of them. 

‘She won’t let them play exy,’ he told Jean that night. ‘But dad’s been downloading old Raven games, and all of our games from this season to show them.’ He paused, breath rushing out of him. ‘It’s all the same, Jeremy. It even smells the same. I thought I’d forgotten everything.’

Jeremy blinked back tears and let him talk for as long as he wanted. His father was out of the Moriyama business for good, released after Jean had promised to pay his own debts,  and was making a decent living as an accountant. His mother was a swimming teacher. Jean had never told him that before. Alexandre and Sebastian swam like fish; Jean had forgotten what being in the ocean was like. 

He talked himself hoarse until Jeremy told him sternly to go to bed and get over the jet lag fast. He hadn’t expected to hear much from him in the way of texts or snapchats, but they started coming almost immediately. Jean’s brothers were gorgeous; they looked just like him, dark haired and bright eyed, making faces at the phone or laughing at something off camera. Their resemblance to Jean was staggering. One photo Jeremy couldn’t help but save to his phone; Sebastian was crouching down beside a lizard and staring up at Alexandre, who was in the middle of explaining something. Both boys had a look of intense concentration and sincerity on their faces, and it was so like how Jean examined an exy court that Jeremy needed a second look.

Jeremy, for his part, sent pictures of Millie riding her horse, videos of twelve year old Izzy deftly putting the chickens to sleep, snaps of his mother cooking up a storm in the kitchen and his father falling asleep in front of the tv. When his eldest sister Melanie arrived home for Christmas they spent the whole night sitting up drinking wine and talking, and Jeremy said some things that he couldn’t say to any of the Trojans, not even to Jean. Melanie nodded sagely and then threw a couch cushion at him and declared ‘You’re in love, idiot.’

A snap sent from Jean’s phone on Christmas eve showed Jean holding Sebastian up to pet a cat perched on a wall outside their house, and Jeremy almost dropped the phone in his haste to screenshot it. His parents were a little way off in the background. Celine had her purse slung around her shoulder, and Matthieu had his hands in his pockets and was smiling at the pair of them. The cat had its head pushed into Sebastien’s hand, who looked delighted by the whole thing. Jeremy stared at Jean’s laughing expression until Melanie told him he was going crosseyed. 

Jeremy met up with some old friends in town, people he’d known along with Luke, and they all got drunk and walked around rediscovering all of their old haunts. He didn’t remember what videos or snaps he’d sent to Jean the next morning, but he did have a voicemail from Jean that was nothing but him laughing himself hoarse at whatever Jeremy had been doing. He couldn’t even speak and eventually just hung up. Jeremy played it fourteen times and was cured of all alcohol-related illness. 

By the end of the second week, Jeremy was starting to get restless. He’d stayed in contact with the Trojans of course, checking in with everyone individually to make sure they were all doing ok, asking how their holidays were going and so on. Jean had surprised them all by actually contributing to the group chat, albeit at odd hours for them. The day before his flight, Jean sent him a video of his parents literally screaming at each other in French. Half of Jean’s face was in the photo, one hand propping up his head and looking incredibly bored by the drama going on over his shoulder. The caption was ‘miss you’. 

Jeremy’s flight was early the next morning, but that didn’t stop him and Melanie from going out and getting trashed, coming home two hours before he was meant to leave. His dad drove him to the airport after a teary farewell from his mother and sisters, and after a long delay in departures, two hours sitting on the tarmac, and having to do a flyover at the airport because there was no available gate, Jeremy was more than ready to snap at someone. He was brutally tired and pretty damn hungover, but when he got to arrivals he saw that Jean’s flight from Marseilles was only two hours behind his. So he trekked all the way over to the other terminal for international arrivals and set his phone alarm to wake him up when Jean’s flight arrived. 

He woke up to a hand stroking his cheek. Eyelids fluttering open, he experienced a moment of severe confusion in seeing Jean’s face staring at him in bemusement. 

‘Are you early?’ he mumbled, struggling to sit up.

‘Yeah,’ Jean said, who was kneeling beside the bench. ‘You’re the one in the wrong terminal, Jeremy.’ His accent was so much stronger now, Jeremy thought in a daze.

He sat up, blinking hard to clear the fog, and looked at Jean, who looked perfectly fucking rested because he could sleep anywhere at any time like a cat. A slow smile spread over his face. 

‘Hi,’ he said, reaching out. Jean took his hand and squeezed it, grinning. 

‘Did you seriously wait here for me?

‘No.’

‘I thought Trojans couldn’t lie.’ 

‘That’s fairies, Jean.’

Jean pulled him up and into his arms, and Jeremy could only lean on him, holding on for dear life. 

‘I missed you so much,’ he mumbled. 

Jean squeezed him tightly. ‘I missed you too,’ he said. ‘Why are you so tired?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

Jean huffed a laugh into his hair, and Jeremy felt something unwind and relax inside his chest. Jean was here, he was fine, everything was fine. 

They stepped outside to wait for the uber, and Jean had the audacity to shiver in the breeze. 

‘Seriously?’ Jeremy asked incredulously. 

Jean shrugged. ‘It's cold,’ he muttered in French, slipping his hand into Jeremy’s, who rolled his eyes despite the surge in his heart. 

‘It is not,’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s California.’

Jeremy stepped in front of him, eyes bright with a humour that seemed new.

‘Warm me up?’ he asked innocently. Jeremy didn’t need a second invitation. He stepped eagerly into Jean’s space and wrapped his arms around his neck. Jean put a hand on the wall behind them, the other against the small of Jeremy’s back, and kissed him. 

Fuck, he’d missed this. The way Jean felt against him was intoxicating, and knowing that he had him all to himself now was almost enough to fry Jeremy’s already over-taxed brain. They kissed lazily, with promises in the scrape of fingertips on skin and the gentle graze of teeth against lips. Jeremy could think of nothing else but getting Jean back to their room and locking the door for as long as they wanted. 

A horn blared loudly, nothing special outside the arrivals of an airport. But the shout that followed it made Jeremy pause and actually open his eyes. 

‘Any time you’re ready, Knox?’

He groaned against Jean’s mouth. ‘Fuck it.’

‘You told Alvarez my flight time?’

‘Of course I did,’ Jeremy protested. ‘What, make your own way back from the airport, by yourself? It’s not the Trojan way, Jean.’

Jean looked at him with such unbearable fondness that Jeremy actually forgot that they had an audience. He kissed Jean again, holding up his index finger over Jean’s shoulder when the car horn blared impatiently. He switched to his middle finger when the whistling started. 

’They’re tres, uh, impatient,’ mumbled Jean against Jeremy’s mouth, hands on his waist. ‘That’s your fault.’

‘She might actually run us down,’ Jeremy agreed. He grinned. ‘Come on. Sit in the back and hold my hand.’

The girls were insufferable on the way back to campus, and Jean bore it all with good grace. He murmured very bad things in French in Jeremy’s ear, and the Jeremy blushed worse at that than at anything Alvarez said. 

It was a little after midday when they arrived back, and both of them were starting to wilt. 

‘No practise today, but Coach wants us to meet at three,’ Laila informed them as they hauled their bags up the stairs. ‘He’d have told you this himself but you still haven’t turned your phone on, Jeremy.’

‘Oops,’ Jeremy said, juggling three bags in one hand to get his phone out of his pocket. ‘My bad. Aw shoot, I should have text my parents too.’

‘Guess you were distracted,’ grinned Alvarez. Jean hip checked her into the wall and she cackled all the way up the stairs. 

By unspoken consent, they shut the curtains and locked the door once they were alone in their room. They stripped to just t-shirts and underwear and Jean dragged Jeremy down into his bed. Jeremy just managed to set his phone alarm for 2:15 before Jean was wrapping his arms around him and kissing the back of his neck. They dozed off almost immediately; when Jeremy’s alarm went off, the phone was still resting in his hand. 

Two hours wasn’t nearly enough of a rest, especially for Jean, but if they had any hope of getting his sleep schedule back to normal before classes - and more importantly, practise - they had to readjust him to California time as soon as possible. Jeremy pushed him into the shower and gave him strict instructions not to drown. Jean only rolled his eyes and pulled Jeremy in after him. 

They got to the meeting five minutes late with wet hair, and Jean was thankfully too tired to notice the audacious grinning and a low taunting cheer coming at them from all sides. Coach eyed Jeremy sternly but even he looked amused. 

‘Shut it,' he told them. 'Now that we’re all here, we can begin. Someone keep Moreau awake.’

‘On it,’ Alvarez said, and leaned in to whisper something in Jean’s ear, whose eyes immediately flew open. He glared at Alvarez, who leaned back on Laila to laugh at him. Without thinking, Jeremy put a hand on Jean’s arm to bring him back, and was only a little surprised when Jean relaxed at his touch. 

‘Coach,’ said Jeremy cheerfully, trying to ignore all the staring. ‘Meeting. Exy.’ 

He tried to be as enthusiastic as he could during the meeting, helping to lead the discussion with Coach and telling them what he’d been learning about the Foxes and Penn’s new lineup over Christmas vacation. Eventually they all just started laughing at him because he was falling over himself from exhaustion but pushing on valiantly. He kicked Jean’s leg every now and Jean would blink and insist he was awake but Jeremy knew Jean could cat nap like no other and could probably do it with his eyes open. 

‘This is all great, Jeremy,’ Coach said, scanning some of his notes. ‘Really good work. Ok, backliners, that new formation Jeremy mentioned. Thoughts?’

Jeremy collapsed, relieved, and let his head fall on to Jean’s shoulder. Jean’s head slipped to rest on his, and for a solid forty-five minutes they dozed, letting the voices of the team around them provide a comforting background. 

Coach ended the meeting by dropping his folder on to the desk very loudly.

‘Welcome back, sleeping beauties,’ he said, eyeing them both. He pointed a finger at Jean. ‘Sort that out by tomorrow. I hate time zones.’

‘Yes Coach,’ mumbled Jean, pushing himself off Jeremy, who hung on to his arm and made Jean pull him up. ‘God you’re such a baby,’ he complained, getting an arm around Jeremy’s waist and tugging him in close. 

‘Knox, what’s your excuse?’ Coach said, standing up and gathering his things. The Trojans filtered out around them, chatting amicably, but Jeremy could practically hear their ears pricking up.

‘Late night,’ he said honestly. ‘And a bad flight. I’ll be good for tomorrow.’

Coach eyed him. ‘You’d better be.’ Then he looked at them properly, at Jean’s arm around Jeremy’s waist and Jeremy’s hand resting on Jean’s shoulder. Jeremy smiled a little and said ‘I won’t let him go to sleep until nine at least.’

‘Fuck,’ Jean complained quietly. 

‘You’ll like it,’ Jeremy said in French.

‘Oh my god,’ said Alvarez, who had more than enough French to understand.

For all his talk, they didn’t do anything that night. Dinner with the Trojans involved a lot of good-natured teasing which Jeremy thought they withstood with remarkable good grace. Tori and Connor were also subject to lewd remarks, so they didn’t get all of the heat at least, and Jean sat beside him with a hand on his knee and Jeremy was buoyant. He leaned into Jean’s space to talk quietly, telling him about how his mother demanded he bring him home next time, and how much he liked seeing photos of France, and how sweet his brothers looked. Jean replied that he used to save Jeremy’s snapchats to open at the end of the day, when he was lying in bed and missed him the most. Jeremy almost kissed him right there for that but really didn’t want to cause a scene, so he settled for squeezing Jean’s hand under the table. 

‘So I guess it all worked out then,’ Laila said quietly when they were getting up to leave. Jean was distracted by Connor and Tori - were they commiserating with him? - So Jeremy said, ‘Yeah, guess it did.’

Laila grinned. ‘The sun is literally shining out of your face, Jeremy,’ she said. 

They held hands walking back to the dorms, and no one even bothered to say anything about it. Jeremy slid his thumb back and forth against Jean’s in utter contentment, and thought about how far they’d come. They lagged behind the rest of the team, walking slowly in the cool evening air. 

‘Remember when you first got here?’ he asked suddenly. 

Jean raised an eyebrow. ‘How could I forget?’

Jeremy grinned. ‘You said you didn’t like me. Or no, what was it exactly? When I first dragged your ass on to the court to practise without the rest of the team, I believe you said “Stop talking and wasting my time, Knox”.’

‘I never spoke to you like that,’ Jean said.

‘Did so.’

‘These are lies.’

‘It was so hurtful, Jean, I remember it very clearly - ‘

Jean stopped walking abruptly and pulled Jeremy around to face him. He moved into his space and pressed his lips to Jeremy’s grin, biting at his lip gently to get him to knock it off. 

‘I definitely had a point,’ Jean murmured, as Jeremy slung an arm up to wrap around his neck, pulling him closer. Jeremy was laughing, he couldn’t help it. 

‘Are you drunk?’ Jean asked, pulling back slightly to frown at him. Jeremy shook his head, biting his lip to keep the grin back. Jean reached up and freed it with his thumb, smoothing over the little bite mark.

‘No,’ Jeremy said. ‘I’m just glad you’re back.’

Jean smiled, and it really was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. ‘France was nice,’ he admitted. ‘And I want to go back some day soon. But … I’m happy to be home now.’ He paused, and Jeremy stroked the back of his neck as Jean got his thoughts in order. 

‘Do you remember what you said to me,’ he asked. ‘Before I left?’

Jeremy shrugged. ‘Man, that was a dark time. Specifically? Uh, I probably said please don’t go, I love you, you should definitely go - did I cry?’

Jean paused, a gleam in his eyes. ‘What?’

Jeremy’s brain rolled back his last sentence, and his hand froze on the back of Jean’s neck. 

‘What? Nothing. No-thing. What were you saying?’

Jean’s face was alight with humour, but he was kind enough to let Jeremy off with that one. 

‘You said,’ he continued, deliberately, ‘that I’m yours. Do you remember?’

Jeremy nodded, swallowing. ‘I remember.’

Jean pressed his forehead to Jeremy’s and closed his eyes, and Jeremy remembered the surrender in his body, Jean’s willingness to be claimed and held by Jeremy, and he shivered. 

‘I am,’ he said. Jeremy’s heart battered his ribcage and he struggled to find anything to say that would come close to a good enough answer. 

‘And I’m yours,’ he said, realising that it was true. ‘All yours.’

Jean wrapped his arms around him, eliminating the space between them so their hearts could beat against each other. Jeremy stroked the side of Jean’s face, feeling the wind ruffle their hair and tug at their clothes. He shifted closer, snuggling into the warmth of Jean’s body.

‘Thank you.’

Jeremy blinked, tilting his head to look at him. ‘What for?’

Jean rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t make me list it all. For everything, Jeremy.’

Jeremy smiled. ‘Well then I gotta say thank you too.’

Jean frowned. ‘For what?’

‘Same reason, dumbass.’

Jean gave a dry little laugh, shaking his head. ‘Is this another Trojan thing? Answering every sentiment of gratitude with one of your own?’

Jeremy sighed. ‘God, you’re so dramatic. And you're just as much a Trojan as I am, remember?’

Jean smiled ruefully. ‘Oh yeah, that.’

‘Please don’t pretend you don’t love it.’

Jean smiled thoughtfully, then leaned in to kiss the corner of Jeremy’s mouth. 

‘I do love it,’ he said, lips against Jeremy’s skin. ‘I love it so much.’

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://thetrojeans.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/lazarusthefirst/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Too Good To Be Good For Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6610108) by [minyrrds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minyrrds/pseuds/minyrrds)




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